Category Archives: Board

UPDATE: I have moved these questions to the http://Elections.sqlpass.org Discussion forum. So that they can be discussed by all there on the forums. I will not be putting up the candidate responses instead I would like them to answer on that site.

Tomorrow will be a big day for the group of candidates that are looking to become a member of the PASS Board of Directors. Candidates that have made the slate will get announced on the 18th of Aug. All election details and candidates can be found on the PASS election site located here.

If you are a PASS member or even a just a member of the SQL Community you need to start talking to these candidates asking questions and gathering information about them. The PASS Board has a large effect on the SQL community so you should put some serious thought into these candidates.

Andy Leonard (Blog |Twitter) has done an excellent series of interview questions for the PASS Board Candidates on his blog series listed here. I came up with a few more questions that were important to me after discussing with Andy I decided to take the same format for my blog posts as he did for his. I decided to wait until the final candidate list was chosen. Below is the list of questions I will be emailing to each candidate and I will post the responses as I receive them here on my blog.

1. PASS has been making strides to improve transparency over the last few years. Do you intend to further the transparency of PASS and if so how? If not why?

2. PASS is a volunteer run organization. If you are elected to the board what will you do to help the volunteers make PASS a better organization?

3. Let’s assume hypothetically that PASS has decided to create a PASS Certification program. You have been tasked with creating a proposal for how you would do this. Please tell me how you would create the proposal and your feelings on whether you think this is a good idea or not.

These are the questions that are important to me. I would suggest that you find questions that are important to you and email them to the candidates and get your questions answered before you vote.

I want to say thank you to the Board candidates that have applied and given their time. Whether you make it on the Board or not you have been willing to volunteer your time and that’s always a good thing in my book.

I spent 2 years as a Board member. It was very rewarding and here are some of the things I learned and reasons I came up with to join the ranks.

1. How to Deal with Budgets. When I started on the board I was a DBA I had little to no business experience . I didn’t know that we had to manage millions of dollars I always just sent in an expense report to someone and expected to get paid. This was a great eye opener for me and really made me a better Database person in the future when I could understand financials better.

2. How to deal with others and compromise. Now most DBA’s are pretty good at this(not the compromise part) since we have to deal with not seeing eye to eye with developers all the time. But what about when you don’t agree with your fellow DBA? The board taught me to work well with my peers and to compromise at certain times.

3. How to manage people. I have been quoted on many occasions to say I’m not a very good manager. It’s something I’ve worked on for much of my career but still feel I have a lot of room to grow in. It is something that the Board helped me on. You have to manage volunteers that “work” for you. How effectively you do this will matter greatly to the community at large.

4. Learning to take criticism. I would be lying to say it’s all Bacon and Set based queries on the PASS Board. The SQL Community is vibrant and vocal about suggestions. In my opinion it makes the Board better and that helps to make the community better. If your not vocal in our community right now you should be! You need to tell PASS what they are doing wrong and right. The more we give feedback the better things will be. I learned a lot about taking criticism on the board and how to turn it into something positive.

5. Last but not least. Working with people outside our community. Did you know there’s people out there that have never heard of PASS!?!?! I know it’s a crime right? :) I learned that you can meet so many people and really talk to them about not only the PASS organization but the SQL Community in general and tell them how great it is to be part of it! I love explaining to people what kind of community we have and how we help each other. Being an Ambassador for PASS while I was on the Board was one of the most rewarding things I did.

Hopefully these things I’ve learned will help you in your decision to run for the Board. I apologize if I was a little long winded the community and the PASS organization mean a lot to me and hopefully it means a enough to you as well to put in the time and run for the board. 🙂

It’s been more than a month since I updated the blog. I’ve been working hard this year to keep blogging consistently but the last month has thrown some monkey wrenches into my plan.

This weekend I got to work with some great volunteers at Photo Camp Utah. Many of the volunteers spent much of there day missing out on some great sessions. They did this not for any reward or recognition but simply because they wanted to help others. The organizers of Photo Camp have put in 100’s of hours planning and organizing and as much as Jeremy would like to say he just nagged all of us he was the driving force of the event. Which is crucial in making a great event. Next time your on a photowalk and your around Jeremy or any of the great volunteers to Photo Camp make sure to thank them for the time they put in.

This is true for my fellow volunteers in the PASS community as well. Right now there are a group of people that are getting together to meet and make a great PASS community. They gave up time with there family to help others not asking anything in return.

So as you attend SQL Saturdays, Code Camps, Photo Camps or anything where people are volunteering make sure to take a minute and thank those that give so much in return for so little.

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A quick reminder as well. Utah Code Camp is taking place on March 27th. Come join us for some great presentations!

Currently the PASS Board of Directors election is going on. You can vote for who you think should be on the Board for the next 2 years.

I really just want you to do 2 things.

1. VOTE!

2. Research the candidates and vote for you who you feel is the best candidates to be on the Board of Directors.

There was much lively debate over at Brent Ozar’s blog about Matt Morollo (@mattMorollo) one of the candidates running for the Board. There is information about the candidates as well on the PASS Election website. This information is being presented to you to help make a decision about who you want to vote for.

Having served my time on the Board I can tell you it’s not an easy position and these candidates will have many uphill battles in front of them. We belong to a wonderful community and it’s our responsibility to vote for who we feel are the best candidates. They will have a profound effect on the community as a Board of Director.

Good Luck to all the candidates and thank you for being willing to volunteer for the Board.